I´m too sexy for my ...

O.k. I give up for the night, after days of peering into magic in Harry Potter, as well as the other relevant literature (slightly scaring poor Halldór) I´m starting to see weird things ;-) Click on the pic for a sexy message :-P

Happy times playing with a balloon in the bath ;-)

Originally uploaded by Gunnella.

I love how little kids need to be totally amused, a bath tub full of water and one balloon between them and the obviously wet bathroom floor aside it meant over an hours free writing time for me ;-) who hoo ....
Incidentally bringing to light how little is needed to make me happy :->

Greetings earthlings

Hi all, you may possibly have noticed my near total lack of postage this past week or so, and I´m sorry to announce that it´ll continue for another week or so. Things are just hectic at school, and what with my amazing ability for procrastinating ;-) you can imagine how much I still have left to do before the end of term, which incidentally is on Thursday..*PANIC*

I did however take the time out yesterday to go down to Sheffield and give a paper on Graffiti in Edinburgh, or rather on the woes of folklore fieldwork when improperlprepareded ;-)

Much to my own surprise it was very well received, and although I feel I lack all theoretical framework people seemed enthusiastic about the subject and following my presentation I was inundaded with comments and questions. Always amazes me as much when this happens, and the amazement is doubled when upon being questioned I can actually come up with a logical answer ;-P don´t think I´m ever going to come to expect this ;-)

. . . .
I´m finally starting to accept the idea myself that I might have what it takes to be a fairly good academic. About time too seeing as I´m applying for the Phd. I´ll never be an excellent one, for that I lack the dedication and theoretical insights and approaches, however I do enjoy academia, I´m an excellent researcher and I have a zest for teaching... And people strangely enough seem to appreciate my work..*puzzled look*

I know I know.. I´m however a bit thick only admitting this to myself now ;-)

In regards to my dissertation questionnaire the response has been amazing, thank you all who helped and posted links for me :-D
*Huuug*
So far 523 have accessed the questionnaire and over 200 what I term "good" responses, i.e. people who honestly filled it out to the best of their capabilities. So I´m in heaven, it looks as if my dissertation is a go :-D

Halldórs´ 27th birthday :-D

Hiding behind his Icea Cream ;-)
Originally uploaded by Gunnella.

Today was Halldórs´ birthday :-D so he got the customary presents in bed and then we went out to dinner at a restaurant of his choice ;-) Hard Rock cafe :-D
For the full set of incredlibly smiley photos you´lll have to visit my fotopage :-D

Thank you :-)

Thank you so much, those of you who´ve helped me by answering my questionaire it´s going really well :-) I have so far recieved 184 visits and 141 have started the questionaire. A rough estimate of people having actually answered to the best of their ability is around 70 which in my mind is very good :-D

Extra thanks to those of you who´ve forwarded the questionaire as well as those who like Peter of Nakedblog fame posted the link on his blog :-D

I think this might just work after all ;-P

Well back to the books, until later...

It´s online! So now it´s up to you!!

"It" has finally made it online after an arduous gestation period ;-) So now I need your help! What you may ask, precicely has made it online, well my questionnaire has!

To recap: In order for me to write my dissertation I need for as many people as possible to answer my online questionnaire!! With this questionnaire I am trying to document any or all customs or beliefs regarding conception, pregnancy and giving birth

Although the majority of women conceive and bear children, surprisingly little of the beliefs surrounding these life-changing events have been documented. These beliefs and customs vary from one family to the next, although many are remarkably similar, even between continents..

You do not need to have had children yourself in order to answer this questionnaire; most of us have at one time or another had family and friends that have gone through these experiences.

If any of you could possibly spare the roughly twenty minutes to answer I would be most grateful!

Also, just to be extra pushy, if you know of others who might be interested in answering such a questionnaire, or if you work in an environment that is positive to such endeavors (such as schools and offices(pardon me if I´m being prejudiced)), then may I please ask you to forward this text or to post it on relevant notice boards.

The questionnaire is to be found here and is of course perfectly anonymous.

Thank you so much!

Gunnella.

Quick babble between lunch and more studying

Have actually been studying hence the near complete lackiage of postings. We did take a break last night to go see the battlefield band play the Usher Hall. And what an experience! They had visiting musicians from Ubekiztan (I know it´s spelled wrongly) and the whole concert was just this playful interaction between these marvellously talented musicians.

In other news, Halldór is putting the finishing touches to the database for my questionnaire, upon which , or rather upon the resaults of which I will be basing the whole of my dissertation ... *nervous shiver* I will be making an appeal to those of you who pop by here onece in a while, to fill it out for me... the more responses the better the data..

Elena was somewhat hurt when she found out that Star Wars was rated 12 and over, but mollified by Ragnar pointing out to her that when she´s actually 12 he´ll be 15 and have his own money and hence would invite her to the cinema with him... So nice, so sweet and caring, and so very unlikely to happen ;-) Ach well, one can enjoy the moments.

Anyways, Ms Shu Shu Costa awaits me with her Lotus seeds and Lucky stars, for to review her book, so I´d best be heading off if I´m to allow myself to see both Dr Who as well as The Eurovision finals tonight... ;-) Eccleston has apparently agreed to star in a romantic movie now... I can´t help but feel somewhat like he´s an ungrateful git but that´s just me speaking..

Real time Eurovision semi finals , who hooo ! ;-)

Am currently watching The semifinals of the Eurovision Song Contest, so this is going to be a sort of ongoing commentary, albeit not nearly as sarcastic nor witty as the british commentators ;-P

Austria - eeeech ...I think the lesser said the better

Whilst I´m waiting for the bavarian, peppy yodeling brassband to finish I´ll just mention offhandedly that my team did not, indeed, win the Star Wars last night. We did however end up with scores much closer to the winner than the lowest team ;-)
On second thought I like her hair... that´s something I guess ;-)

Lithuania - Laura and her lovers..? O.k. Extremely scary face but nice boots, I can forsee this one becoming popular in Spanish and German night clubs.. Jennifer Garner on a VERY bad hairday..

Portugal - First thoughts..nice beat and dancing, then the singing commenced....*scared bewilderd face* humm wonder how many Ruslana copycats there will be here tonight ;-)

Moldovia "what" "where" "when" o.k. liking the offbeatness... nice beat, can´t really understand any of the "English" text and what´s with the Caribbean singing..? Ikabaka choba, doba was amaka mama was a boga... o.k. they just had a grandma walk on in traditional costume with agiant drum.. O.k. these might just make it.

Latvia ahh, how sweet, two pwetty boys wif guitars. I´ll let Elena judge this one, she´s clapping and diddling along with the beat... so we´re also betting on them. Oooooooo sign language accompanying the self help book lyrics... nice. It´s official, Elena apparently "Loves this one" and wants the cd, had I mentioned that she´s 6!

Monaco hey they´re actually singing in foreign (read French) points for pride and stubborness.... dunno...don´t understand the text and it´s kinda lyric based and slow..
Nice strong voice + handsome statuesque woman + whiny language=She´s through

Israel can anyone sing Hubba hula ? ;-) oops Monaco has competition a petite blond with a nice voice, singing in foreign and wearing a gown... battle of the divas.

Belarus o.k. someone went overboard with the gown and the crown jewels (no! Not Charles´) What is that thing on her butt? But she does have three wee Lord Fauntleroys swooning over her and undulating..always a good addition in my opinion ;-) Eeek the diva thing was working but the Abba sequeened bootlegged gold stretch suit.

Netherlands I have a dream...well we all do dear! Strangely enough she reminds me of American Idol... No, actually strong nice voice, excllent precence and an extremely Eurovision like song...so maby

ICELAND Selma again, singing If I had your love.. now let´s see.. god awful costumes It´s everything and nothing.. yet it´s powerful and she can sing...fingers crossed.
I´m guessing we have a chance.

Belgium....eeewwwwww smarmy what?

Estonia It´s them plunky swedes all over again!! only in a Spice Girl getup.

Norway Yikes, steelhouse rock rides again, Jon Bon Jovi WILL be suing!! And Gene Simmons phoned, he wants his costume back! Joking aside, nice to have some electric guitar mixed up with all the preppy cheerleaders and wannabe dames.

Rumenia flutes - working, Ruslana beat - not so much, nice voice albeit somewhat forced..o.k. catchy beat, ooo and metal banging kewl points there. A ruslana imitation yet different enough for it to work.

Hungary Hey it´s riverdance alloveragain.. Wow I´m such a sucker for dancing slim men in black. Half of her costume is amazing, sexy, gothic, sleek, the other half, well it´s missing! I wanna see them again (and yes I´m biased ;-)

Finland Jhonny Logan rides again, pity abput the face. But apart from Denmark the other year no country has really benefitted from sending well known national crooners. Mostly I´m guessing because they´re normally so old by the time they get there... I´m betting on this one to continue though.

FYR Macedonia what a mismatch between costumes and song..? Peppy beat and that´s about all I can say..

Andorra yet another Ruslana beat, but hey undulating half naked males :-D Refreshing as well to see that the backup singers were NOT chosen for their looks but for their voices. O.k. good voice, a theme, feathery half naked males. I´d like to see them continue!!

Switzerland Vanilla what? Glittery white rocky thingy...He he the drummer dropped his cue and the drumming continued... Repetetive song but had something special for them so.. we´ll see

Croatia Wolfes die alone, apparently..... bagpipes and an eery choir... an old type crooner with a cultural twist, naaw don´t think so.
I´m betting though that Svavas rooting for this one, he has David Duchovny eyes.

Bulgaria Club singer! Last song of the evening type... you know where they try to bring the crowd don.

Ireland Love can..... Not much to say...

Slovenia Sole guy on a stage, o.k. ... not bad, soft crooner with strength.. a bit young for me but hey ;-P Feels slightly like he´s about to sing the national anthem though... It just picked up the rythm... this one might just make it through, how large percentage do you think of the voters will be teenage girls ;-)

Denmark My first reaction was "Thats SOOO stolen" but now I´m not so sure, the intro was amazing, to the point of me even ignoring the pink flowery shirt and the orange suade sneakers. My bet is on him winning tonight!

Polland pink frilled polkadancers going lailailailailai, ouch horrible, sorry but there´s no other word!

We didn´t get through .... hrumph . . oh well it leaves me to cheer on Denmark and Hungary

So what´s your all time favorite Eurovison song? I think mine would have to be Hubba Hulla by Israel..´80 something

I´m a silly nilly sod, cue: Hit me on the head or kick me in the rear!

Have I ever mentioned that I´m crazy? well o.k. let´s mollify it to over optimistic, procrastinating, prone to anxiety attacks over unfinished chores, lazy and .... , o.k. The gist of it all is that I should be studying for my course. I have two essays to hand in on the third, along with 4 book reviews (admittedly only a 1000 words each), I still haven´t posted my questionnarie online, the one which will form the basis of my dissertation to be handed in in September, still haven´t handed in my phd application, partially because I´m having second thoughts about the school at which I intend to study and what am I currently doing....?

Watching and memorizing Star Wars, all five of them!?! See I told you I was a silly sod ;-) I got bamboozled into parttaking in the university Star Wars quiz here tonight by Halldórs mates, So tonight kids get handed off to poor Ragna and Helgi as we gallavant down to the student centre where I for one will show off my total lack of trivia knowledge....

Tomorrow... I promice to finish the questionnaire and hand it over to Halldór for to assist with database building. Then come Friday we´re invited to a chinese picknic at the foot of Arthurs seat as well as to a concert in the evening... Why is it that social events all seem to be crammed into the space of a couple weeks, all whilst one really should be doing something entirely different??

Anyways, episode 5 awaits me... May the force be with you ;-P

p.s. for the best found source of Star Wars Trivia check here :-D

A day in the life of....

Well, felt like I did loads today,

• managed to get my abstract off for the conference on the 27th. Am generally going to be revamping my graffiti presentation to suit a broader audience. Wonder whether my joking will go down well in the English department...Who cares ;-)
• Finally sent a letter to Steini, my wee brother, Who´s starting to think I´m deliberately repaying him all those years he spent at boarding school and never wrote me ;-P He´s now ensconed in Amsterdam and when last heard of had been taken in by a Green Whitch (or was it purple?) and is calling himself Walker, all of which is a good thing... You really have to know the family ;-)
• Ordered a book on Potter off Amazon. The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, Seeing as one of my end of year papers is to be on magic as presented in Harry Potter, the influences this view has had as well as how magic is presented to teenagers... o.k. yes I need to work on the theoretical aspects of it but the main idea is there ;-P
• Meant to do a lot of arranging appointments in Iceland, only after half an hour swearing in my mind at my doctor did I realise that back home it´s Whitsun weekend, hence noone in...one thing postponed till tomorrow
• When doing lists like these I really should add as well, got kids up and dressed, made them lunch, got them off to school, washed two machineloads, picked kids up, had them change into Judo gear, delivered them unto Judo lesson and made dinner..... never mind

It´s a beautiful day in the Neighborhood, I hope you´re gonna stay a while!!

Only after blogging this was it pointed out to me that the title, that brings to my mind a heavy metal song by Ugly Kid Joe invokes feelings of pure and utter kornyness in most others....hummmm...Intresting how one assumes others will percieve things in a manner similar to ones own....

Had a wonderfully sunny day here in Embra today, so much so that even the hungover one (no names shall be named) made it to the garden to enjoy sun, kids and general well being...
Things learnt (nicking this from Alan, shhhh don´t tell ;-)

• Snails come with shells in this country and according my kids have offspring the mammal way (we had our reservation as to the named excretion but... scientific inquiry and all that)
• Halldór claims not to sunburn, hence the bright redness of his chest will from now on be referred to as "the tan"
• more to come later...read after dinner ;-)
  

Blogmeet of the Scottish contingency ;-)

I had the greatest time last night, met new people, chatted about everything and got myself slightly over inebriated ;-) The occasion was the second ever scottish blog meet, a group of people who´ve never met yet know alarmingly much about each other through reading each others blogs :-D Bringing back to light the whole, dangers of the internet, lurkers, mass murderers and them lot. But apart from some minor beginning silences and shynesses it turned out to be a very enjoyable day/evening/night :-D
I, of course, started off on the wrong foot, by walzing into the pub, looking around me searchingly, an promptly going over to the wrong group when hailed enticingly :-) Following that embarrasment I retreated outside where I found a couple of familiar faces, thank god for Gordons idea of pictiure posting pre meetup!
All in all 11 of us turned up and there was none of the first time meeting hesitancy, instead we sat there drinking away for 7 hours, not bad ehi ;-) I even missed Dr Who without too much remorse ;-)

All in all an excellent time with fun people, now only one question remains: When will we do it again ? ;-P

• Gordon (gordonmclean.co.uk)
  
• Richard (bloomfield.me.uk)
  
• Elizabeth (I should know better)
  
• David (weedavid.com)
  
• David (Freedom and whisky)
  
• Shauna (what’s new pussycat?)
  
• Rory (speedysnail.com)
  
• Martin (martinlittle.com)
  
• Peter (nakedblog.com)
  
• Alan (Random Burblings)

For a most entertaining and insightful description of the evenings events I pass you on to Peter of NakedBlog fame, whose alarmingly charming manner had me mezmerized :-D

Wee David just posted some fun pictures and I hereby dutifully plagiarise them ;-) well a couple anyway...

Friday the 13th ;-)

How cool is that then ;-)

So what´s your favorite superstition?

These days.....

The weather here has been lovely for the past few days, summer has literally arrived. That fits....I have two essays and four bookreviews to hand in in only three weeks time ;-) Typical, never understood why there are exams in spring, it´s always sunny during revision ;-)

At least I´ve decided upon my essay topics, the one in the materials of folklore is going to be on food as a presentation of cultural identity, taking examples from both Iceland and Scotland it will feature such delicasies as fermented shark, soured rams testicles, hot dogs and a Polish chockolate bar called Prins Polo. For my other paper, the one on literature and folklore, I´ll be looking at Magic as presented in the Harry Potter books, in fan communities and as presented in the variety of other material mainly targeted at adolescents.

In other news, the kids had their first Judo grading the other day and are now the proud bearers of a red and a red striped obi (belt) respectively. :-D And the mum is of course even prouder ;-P

Then the bicycles we bought the other day finally arrived, inducing a great longing for the outdoors in Ragnar and a certain sense of imbalance in Elena ;-) He´s loving every minute of it whereas her stamina is somewhat lessened by the fact that she´s having great difficulty gaining her balance. Hence we´ve had extra excercise of late, trailing alongside her, keeping her balance and running behind her, unobtrusively, of course :-D

Taken Summer 2004

Must admit to missing Iceland these days, Summer in Iceland is by far the best place to be ;-D

Furðufugl means a weirdo, but it also means a funny bird, hence the funnyness of this graffiti ;-)among descriptions of the pond birds

A day in the life of a student at NATCECT ;-)

View from an early morning train

View from an early morning train 1
Originally uploaded by Gunnella.

Whilst taking my Tuesday train to Sheffield I see the most amazing sceneries :-D Unfortunately due to the reflections as well as the speed, I tend to get really crappy shots, this one admittedly came out ok though..... after I´d cut out the reflection of the camera ;-P

All smiles ready for cake :-D

All smiles ready for cake :-D
Originally uploaded by Gunnella.

I survived, I am alive! After the invasion of 6 boisterous, energetic young´uns that thoroughly enjoyed running, screaming and generally being of extreme good (loud) cheer I wasn´t quite sure, but now after the tidying up is done, beer in hand and left over cake in my lap.... well life couldn´t be any more dandyer could it ;-)

05.05.05. :-D

It´s been six years, incredibly enough six years since I gave birth to wee Elena Þorbjörg Bjarnadóttir. A little lady who came into this world screaming angrily, bright red and somewhat squished ;-) Her nose was so upturned, she´d probably had her hand on it in the womb hence the look. The look I compared to an intresting mix of Meatloaf and Harrison Ford :-D Eevil mum, right ;-)
Since then she´s grown into an amazing, artistic, smart, self willed and somewhat opinionated lady ;-) So very different from me she´s all for pink dresses and fluffyness and socially she´s incredibly strong. Yet at the same time she´s self assured, strong and totally lacking in any kind of shyness :-D

A story ;-) Shortly after we moved to Reykjavík in 2003, I came to the playschool to pick her up and slightly waryly asked how things were going, especially in regards to the discipline area. The thing is she´s always had a difficulty obeying rules and staying still ;-) so when the playschool teacher cheerily answered that there was absolutely no problem these days I was astonished?? And asked how come....well the answer was; "these days, whilst in story hour, she´s no problem at all. She just sits in the corner with her boyfriend making out...."

Whilst I made my best babbling fish imitation, opening and closing without sound coming out, she smiled sweetly at me... I think it was at that point I decided upon the strong tower.... the one in which to lock her up in until she becomes 20 ;-P